Your Heart Belongs to Me
by Senko Wakimarin
Summary: Like the Tinman of Oz, all Kakuzu needed was a heart. Too bad Hidan isn't interested in letting him keep it. A nightmare, rated for gore, language, and sexual themes.
1. Chapter 1

Your Heart Belongs to Me

Author's Note: Once upon a time, I was walking in a bookstore, and I found a book called 'Your Heart Belongs to Me', by Dean Koontz. Koontz is a decent enough writer; I generally enjoy myself with his stories, and the description in the book-jacket seemed amazing. A heart-transplant patient attacked by his undead donor? Yes please!

To say the least, I was disappointed. His description lied to me. But, as I was reading, I started to think of a story that was similar, but… a little more sinister. Kakuzu and Hidan fit to me because, well, they do.

This is AU, my darlings. Sorry to disappoint, but it's _severely _AU. But I think you'll like it. Let's start at the head of the path again, like we did before. Cling to me if it helps-the woods are dark here, and the path a little twisted, but I promise to bring you through all right.

1. _Dying_

1.1 _He Dreamt of a Dark Wood, a Dark Path_

The attack came as a surprise, as those sort of things have a way of doing. The pain he felt came sharply, so much so, in fact, that he collapsed immediately, curling into a loose ball as if to protect himself from an outside attack. The source of his agony was, of course, internal.

Kakuzu Tsukino had been, as far as anyone could tell, in perfect health. He suffered not even a hint of a cold, even in the dead of winter; on top of his wonderful immune system, he ate well, and exercised regularly. He lived comfortably enough; as a world renown neurosurgeon, he had more money than any man could spend in a life time. Unlike many of his coworkers, he did not indulge in petty vices, enjoying neither cigarettes nor prescription drugs as much as he enjoyed his money.

His fortune, which might have amassed slowly over a life-time of normal work, had come to him mostly as a result of a brilliant technique he had developed for removing cancerous tumors from the brains of his patients. This technique employed a small device he'd created that sent out fine thread-like appendages, which flowed delicately over the brain tissue and sought out cancerous cells to destroy without the clumsy interference of human hands. The device improved the survival rate of cancer patients the world over, and gained him the renown (and money) he now lived with.

Except all the money in the world didn't have the power to resuscitate a fallen man, stricken with a pain so massive that even his powerful body had to bend beneath it. So now he lay, trying desperately to breathe, on the floor of his office, near the third story window of the hospital where he had chosen to work.

It might have amused several of the doctors, certainly any with a sense of irony, that what nearly killed the hulking doctor was the size of his heart. Doctor Tsukino was known for two things: his brilliance, and his cold demeanor. He was not abusive to his staff so much as he was indifferent to them, and he had a short enough temper to make those who worked close to him quick to appease. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy was essentially a swelling of the heart; the frigid neuro-whiz had a heart too large for his breast, it seemed. With the swollen muscle beating against his sternum, he suffered a sudden heart attack, and in all likelihood, should have died on the floor of his office.

What saved him was a series of things that, from his perspective seemed like good luck. Or would, when he was again conscious to appreciate them. The first thing was the arrival of Thomas, one of his interns, who had come to ask if he could leave early to be with his pregnant wife, who was ill. He did not get to leave early, because his boss was in the early stages of dying. He did, however, get to launch a minor panic among the nurses in the hall, which was very satisfying, considering his frustration.

The second thing was the extensive network of renown doctors in the hospital, whose reputations would be somewhat tainted if their most famous coworker were to die without every effort being made to save him. Despite the fact that no one really _liked_ Doctor Tsukino, everyone liked their jobs, and liked being looked up to as medical authorities, and so in the interest of maintaining the things they liked, they strove to save what they didn't.

The third, and most likely the greatest thing, was the heart. He needed a new one, and he needed it immediately. While some patients with cardiomyopathy were given months, sometimes as much as a year to eighteen months to live, many died outright from the first attack. Cardiomyopathy could not be cured with blood transfusions or pills, or even clever little machines that sought illness with sensitive little fibers. The only possible cure was transplant, and luckily for Doctor Tsukino, someone happened to have a heart for him.

Under normal circumstances, organs are removed from donors who have signed them away, and are given to people waiting on a long list. The system is unfortunate in that many people chose not to donate, and many people need fresh organs to continue living long enough not to give their own away. So the heart in the John Doe ought to have remained in his chest to be burned with the rest of him, as there was no wallet in which to look for next of kin or donor cards. And had there been, and his heart been on the list of available organs, the heart should have gone to someone at the top of the list.

However, the doctors so in love with their prestige made a small allowance in favor of Kakuzu Tsukino, and went ahead and transferred John Doe's heart into his chest after discovering that it was the proper size and blood type. It just seemed too good an opportunity to waste.

In the mean time, Kakuzu dreamed. Deep, deep in his subconscious, far enough that concepts like _living_ and _dying_ had no valid meaning, he dreamt of a dark wood, a dark path, a dark house under a dark sky. Somewhere he could hear waves crashing against undoubtedly dark rocks. Sometimes he walked in his dream, slowly wandering up the path, toward the house and away from the wood; other times, he seemed to merely drift, as a vapor of consciousness. Alive or dead, even in his dream he wasn't sure- now a man, now a ghost.

He did not make it to the house in his dream, though he understood, somehow, in the way people understand simple truths in their dreams, that the house was important for him, that everything he saw would be important, given time.

After a long time, the dream fragmented into a base of pure, welcome blackness. In that blackness there was no room for woods or houses on the shores of dark oceans, and Kakuzu dreamed no more.


	2. Chapter 2

2. Nightmares

2.1 _You have a good night, Doctor_

"This is the master bedroom, you know."

Following the sweep of the woman's hand, Kakuzu's face tightened at the nasal whine as she once again tacked his knowledge on to the end of her sentence. The regional accent butchered vowels and seemed spoken only with the nose, making every word a painful simper.

"You seemed so eager for the place, I had my kids go ahead and give everything a turn-down, so the bedding's nice and fresh. "

With a noncommittal grunt, the doctor backed out of the room and into the hallway.

"Ah, you're tired, I know," The realtor said sympathetically, turning 'you're' to a nearly vowel-less '_y'r. _For perhaps the eighteenth time since meeting her twenty minutes ago, Kakuzu felt her hand on his shoulder. "You came such a long way from California!" _Ya came sch a long wey frm Cally-forn-ya!_

"It was a long drive, yes." He agreed, moving back a little more to gracefully remove her hand from him. 'Long drive' was really putting it mildly, but it had been better than paying the ridiculous airline fees.

"Well, there's just one more thing I want to show you, then you can have the place to yourself."

_There's jest one mer thing I wanna show ya!_

Gritting his teeth, he refrained from reminding the woman that the house was already his, and followed her tiny frame down the hall.

"Now, this used to be a guest room, and after that it was a sitting room, but you said over the phone you were a painted, so I went ahead and set it up as a little studio for you." She said, clasping her hands together in barely contained delight at her own cleverness. When he didn't respond her smile somehow grew bigger. "Well, you'll see why," she chirped before turning back toward the closed door, pulling an antique brass key from her pocket and unlocking it. Before pushing the door open, she handed him the key and then stepped aside, gesturing for Kakuzu to enter first.

Inside, he could appreciate why she had been so delighted with herself. He had been prepared to move his supplies to another location, but this was truly a perfect place. The room, paneled in dark wood, was large and open, and the western wall was one large French window. She had oriented everything toward that window and its fantastic view.

"Up here you get green on the trees for only about ninety days, you know," She was saying, grinning behind him as he stared out the window. "Then for about twenty days more you have your autumn leaves, and I thought with the lake being right there, all the trees being reflected, there might be something for you to see."

Even her accent couldn't remove the sense of those words, and Kakuzu nodded, moving forward to better see the lake, enjoying the play of red light on the rocky shoreline. Sunsets, especially over water, were cliché, but he enjoyed their beauty anyway.

"Well, then that's about everything to show. The deed was transferred to your name last week, and you have the keys," she said when he finally turned back around. "I set up that private property sign for you, so the tourists will keep away for the most part. If you need any help moving things around, just give me a ring- I'm two hours away in Marquette, but I don't have much to do anyway."

"Everything is fine," He said, waving a hand passively. "Thank you. I'll show you out."

As the sound of her car faded away, he breathed a sigh of pleasure. The house was larger than the one he had left, and blissfully more secluded- without that woman here, it was quiet and pleasant and exactly what he had imagined when he'd stumbled on the place while browsing the internet. This was the relaxing place he had wanted, he was sure of it. He didn't mind the cold that he knew would come soon- it was late August in Michigan, almost autumn, and winters here came with snow and ice. These were things that attracted him more than repelling, because it meant others would stay away.

He had not been sad to leave California, and no one had been sad to see him go. When he had resigned his position at the hospital instead of accepting the prestigious offer of joining the Board of Directors, the first reaction of his peers had been to throw a party. In his honor, they insisted, but he was not blind enough to ignore what they were really happy about.

It was common knowledge that his survival had merely been convenient for the cardiothoracic surgeons who had saved his life. It had made them look good, but even if he had died on their table, they would have looked heroic trying to save him. And he might still have died, had his body rejected the transplant. His consulting cardiologist had recommended taking time off work and doing something to relax- hence his return to painting, a neglected hobby from his college days. When he had started coming back to work, he found himself distracted and easily annoyed by his interns, who fawned and cooed over him, trying to 'make his day easier' by not letting him work.

No one seemed to understand that he was comfortable going back to how things had been before his heart attack and transplant. In fact, no one wanted things to go back, and with his frustrations mounting, he had decided- for his own health- that it would be better to be on his own that deal with the health complications that this impotent anger brought his new heart.

It had taken a lot of searching to find a home he approved of enough to shell out money for. Even with his vast fortune, he couldn't bring himself to spend money unnecessarily… yet he could hardly tolerate the sounds of life going on outside his suburban home in coastal California. Doctor O'Shea, his cardiologist recommended a change in venue, to somewhere quieter, somewhere far enough away that nothing would remind him of the stresses his 'old life'- the doctor's term, not his own- and help him focus on his future.

A month of internet browsing had revealed this house in northern Michigan. It was right on the coast of Lake Superior, and there had been a photo- likely taken from his new studio- of the lake-front property that came with the house. There was something about the image of the dark water against the rocks of the sure that called to him; another photo showed the forested area that concealed the home from public roads, and that too beckoned to him. He liked the seclusion, the privacy the place had afforded, and almost without a thought to it had called and made a deal for it.

Now it was his, and there was a certain pleasure in that. There had been other people who wanted the house, a place to vacation in or to 'get away' to. He had outbid them, and the triumph was likely a part of his contentment. But there was something more fundamental there as well, and it just seemed natural that he was here, and relatively happy.

So thinking he sat down to a dinner he cooked himself- heart healthy and low in cholesterol- at his new dining room table. Most of the furniture had come with the house, which was good because transportation was expensive anyway you sliced it. He didn't mind the age or the fact that people now dead had used the items in the house; they were old but well maintained, and he found no fault in them.

As he set to washing his lonely few dishes, the phone rang. He considered letting it go, as it could only be the real estate agent calling to make sure he was getting along fine. She was, after all, the only one he'd so far given the land-line number to. But in the end habit kicked in, and he grabbed the receiver off the wall, growling a questionable greeting.

"Is this Kakuzu Tashima?" The voice on the other end was lilting, but raspy, as though the person had a sore throat or had been smoking for a long time. It was not a voice Kakuzu recognized.

"Yes, this is he. Who is this?"

"This is in regards to your heart, Doctor Tashima." The other voice said evasively, the words clipped and harsh. "Your transplant."

Kakuzu sighed at the title, which people still called him by but seemed meaningless now. "You're from O'Shea's office?"

"It belongs to me, Tashima."

The words gave Kakuzu pause. The voice on the other end was certainly not O'Shea, nor would he call so late or behave so icily. "The office?"

"Your heart, asshole." The other voice snapped, and then paused for a moment. "You have a good night, Doctor."

Confused, and consequentially annoyed, Kakuzu held the receiver in his hand even after the line went dead. It wasn't until it started beeping that he hung it back up, frustrated. He had never had enough sense of humor to understand prank callers, and found them to be terribly agitating- especially now, when it seemed they hadn't called at random, but had, in fact, found personal information on him.

In the morning, he resolved, he would be calling Doctor O'Shea to reprimand him on his employee's lack of consideration-for it certainly had to be an employee to have known about his transplant and have any idea that he had left California. O'Shea wouldn't have his number yet, but he would have a record of the new address, where he would be mailing medical documents for Kakuzu to give to the local doctor.

Aggravation took away from his sense of contentment, and he went up stairs irritated, too tired to resist the bed but not wanting to lay down, either. He sat up with the light on, flipping open a book and staring at it, unable to read, for a long time before finally giving up and laying down.

Minutes later, he was asleep.

---

Author's note: Finally the second chapter. I didn't have anyone to look at it, so whatever about the mistakes. As you can see, I went back and changed the good doctor's name to Tashima, because people were having trouble with Sailor Moon references.

Nothing too scary yet.


End file.
